"Non--you have not been so weak as to confess that to one who hates the name of the Françese. Cospetto! If all the Grand Duke's subjects detested his enemies as I do, he would be the most powerful prince in Italy!"
"No doubt, Signore; and now suffer me to inquire if you heard any other name for that felucca than ze Ving-and-Ving. Did I ever call her le Feu-Follet?"
"Non--always ze Ving-y-Ving; never anything else; but--"
"Your pardon, Signore; have the goodness to answer my questions. I called the felucca ze Ving-and-Ving; and I called myself le Capitaine Smeet; is it not true?"
"Si--Ving-y-Ving and il Capitano Smees--Sir Smees, a signore of an illustrious English family of that name, if I remember right."
Raoul smiled, for he was confident this notion proceeded principally from the self-illusion of the two Italians themselves; the little he had said on the subject having been drawn out more by their suggestions than by any design on his part. Still he did not deem it prudent to contradict the podestà, who, as yet, had testified to nothing that could possibly criminate him.
"If a young man has the vanity to wish to be thought noble," answered Raoul, calmly, "it may prove his folly, but it does not prove him a spy. You did not hear me confess myself a Frenchman, you say: now did you not hear me say I was born in Guernsey?"
"Si--the Signore did say that the family of Smees came from that island--as the vice-governatore calls it, though I acknowledge I never heard of such an island. There are Sicilia, Sardegna, Elba, Caprea, Ischia, Irlanda, Inghilterra, Scozia, Malta, Capraya, Pianosa, Gorgona, and America, with several more in the east; but I never heard of such an island as Guernsey. Si, Signore; we are humble people, and I hope modest people in the island of Elba, but we do know something of the rest of the world, notwithstanding. If you wish to hear these matters touched on ingeniously, however, you will do well to call in the vice-governatore for half an hour and invite him to open his stores of knowledge. San Antonio!--I doubt if Italy has his equal--at islands, in particular."
"Good," continued Raoul; "and now tell these officers, Signore Podestà, if you can say on your oath, that I had anything to do with that felucca, ze Ving-and-Ving, at all."